TELEM/AJWS Trip Continued

A group with their host family

"One of the main questions we grappled with on the trip was whether or not it was truly a service trip.  Who was really helping whom?  We did an exercise in which we weighed all the sacrifices made by “us” and “them” against the benefits that came to both sides.  We were able to come up with significantly more benefits for those of us traveling to Mexico than for the people in Muchucuxcah, the village hosting us.  While initially this seemed to put a damper on the week we had enjoyed thoroughly and learned so much from.  Maybe the four figures that we paid to fly to Mexico and stay for a week would have gone further if it had been simply distributed to the people of Muchucuxcah.

We heatedly discussed this dilemma for a while but no one could really deny that had we just given the money we had used to come as charity, more could have been done to help improve the village.  Then we read Maimonides’ Eight Levels of Tzedakah, in which he outlines the various ways of giving Tzedakah and ranks them from least to most honorable.  The most honorable form of giving entails working alongside someone as his equal and helping him to find work so that he will no longer need to rely on charity.  We tried to fit our week into the Rambam’s Levels of Tzedakah and we found that in many ways, it fit into that highest, most prestigious level.  We had worked and played alongside people in the village all week, digging cement from a quarry, removing rocks from what would be the floor of a museum dedicated to preserving Mayan culture in Muchucuxcah, and painting the walls of the shower and bathroom in the area where visitors stay.  And the NGO in Muchucuxcah that hosted us, Hombre Sobre la Tierra (Humankind on Earth), helps members of the village find new, more consistent sources of income than agriculture to help them make more than just enough for subsistence.

Sigismondo, a man originally from Italy who has lived in Muchucuxcah for over twenty years and leads Hombre Sobre la Tierra, may have said it best.  The most important thing we were bringing to this village was not necessarily economic aid.  He said it was most valuable for the people of Muchucuxcah to know that outsiders were interested in their culture and their way of life.  And perhaps the cultural exchange aspect of the trip was most precious for me as well.  Getting the chance to eat in the home of members of a remote Mayan village in the Yucatan Peninsula and practice Spanish with them is truly a once in a lifetime opportunity.  Recalling this aspect of the trip alone destroyed any doubt in my mind regarding the value of trips like this one." 
                       -- David Feig, 17

                 Newton South High School

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